Being at Yad Vashem I could not help but think of the situation that is happening today in Israel and Palestine.
Before going further, let me state some obvious things. Israel is not Nazi Germany. Israel's discriminatory, racist, and at times murderous policies in the West Bank and inhuman blockade and killings in Gaza are not identical to the Holocaust. There are no death camps. There are no gas chambers. There are no crematoriums consuming thousands of corpses on a daily basis. The Israeli army is not the German SS. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during the past 62 years, an overwhelming majority of them innocent and unarmed civilians murdered in actions that most of the world rightly recognizes as war crimes. Yet the number is not in the millions and I have not witnessed or heard of attempts by Israel to murder every Palestinian.
I know that there are some people who try to make the Israel = Nazi Germany comparison. It is not true. It is historically inaccurate and often, though not always, made by people who themselves harbour nazi sympathies and hatred of Jewish people. I am not talking about people who are opposed to Israel's actions towards Palestinians, I am talking about people who hate all Jews and Israelis. There is a very big difference. I do not personally know anyone like that, but do a google search and you will be sure to find people and organizations who do.
Having said that, there is no denying that the Holocaust has had a big impact on Palestinians, and still does today. The Zionist movement, while not initially popular among most Jews, really got off the ground due to Hitler's genocide. Millions of survivors saw Israel/Palestine as their only hope of escape from further calamity, and they came.
Israel's founding meant the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Over 750,000 people were driven out of their homes, Muslims and Christians alike. Villages and towns were emptied, sometimes the victims fled and at other times they were shelled and shot at and killed. In a village called Deir Yassin, zionist forces murdered over 240 Palestinians, many of them women and children. Some were shot, others beaten to death. Grenades were thrown into houses filled with terrified women and children. The empty and gutted homes were set on fire or blown up with dynamite. Many such massacres were committed against Palestinians by the Israeli army and allied paramilitary forces. Palestinians and Arab neighbours who came to support them in the 1948 war also committed some atrocities against Israeli Jews, although they were far fewer in both scale and frequency.
Over the ashes of many Palestinian villages and towns, Israel has planted forests. Often thee is no trace left. Ironically, what used to be Deir Yassin is only about a kilometre or so away from Yad Vashem. It is now a Jerusalem suburb.
Settler groups today try planting trees on Palestinian farmland. They do so protected by the army, often with the soldiers standing by them. The message they are sending could not be more clear.
Zionism's founders from the outset claimed that Palestine must only be for Jewish people, and talked of displacing 'the native Arabs' as early as in the 1800s. Israeli historians like Illan Pappe and Benny Morris are good sources if you want to learn more about some of political zionism's founding principals.
While not genocide, this is certainly ethnic cleansing. As history shows us, this ethnic cleansing has often been accompanied by mass murder.
I have yet to meet one Palestinian who denies that the Holocaust took place, who celebrates it, or claims that it was somehow justified. However, many ask this question: why were we punished for what Hitler did to the Jews?
One of the most haunting things for me at Yad Vashem were the faces of the German soldiers and collaborators in some Eastern Europen and Baltic countries who were 'caught on tape'. A very disturbing photograph is of an officer posing beside two prisoners who are hanging by their wrists and look to be in excruciating pain. The officer is smiling and posing for a photo. He looks like and probably was a sadistic creep. Yet he is an ordinary person.
I do not know what the faces looked like of the masked settlers who broke my nose with a pipe, or of those who attacked our Palestinian friend and broke his knee. When I close my eyes I can sometimes see the 3 masked men coming towards me and Coba but I will probably never know what their faces looked like.
I have heard Palestinians tell horror stories about a Border Police unit that operated in Hebron a few years ago. The soldiers would take Palestinian detainees and force them to play "the lottery". They would have to reach into a black plastic bag and draw out little slips of paper. Each slip of paper described a form of beating. Broken knee. Broken teeth. Broken hand. Some soldiers would hold the screaming Palestinian down while one of them got a club and performed the "punishment". One time, a teenage boy was badly beaten and then thrown out of a speeding jeep. He later died of his injuries.
I was not around when these horrors were perpetrated and have no ideas what the faces of these soldiers looked like or the settlers who attacked us, looked like.
I suspect though they may have been similar to the face of the SS man in the picture. Some of them probably have girlfriends or wives who they love and cherish and respect. They may have kids. Some probably own pets and would never hit their dogs or cats. Some are probably secular, others are probably very religious.
Like the man in the picture, they are probably pretty average people. Yet when they put on a uniform or a black ski mask they become monsters. They dish out pain and suffering and death to others who they see as 'inferior'.
Hatred is a cancer that manifests itself in every act of violence, every act of cruelty, every occupation. As a CPTer and ISMer, I saw it in Hebron almost on a daily basis.
The opposite of hatred is love, and there is no more perfect example of that then the sacrifice that was made on the cross. The sacrifice was made for all, including Palestinians and Israelis alike. I see no more powerful symbol of peace for the world, and I do not believe there is any other hope of true peace.
It is almost 2:00 in the morning here and I am going to bed. If you haven't stopped reading by now, thank you for bearing with me and taking the time to read my jumbled and perhaps at times disorganized thoughts.
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